Fontana School Board approves semi-automatic rifles for school police

FONTANA - Fontana Unified School District trustees lined up in favor of their school police force having rifles during a special meeting Wednesday night.

The board also took a small step toward restoring the district's counselor program, which was slashed in 2011 but somewhat revived with people in two job categories.

The meeting Wednesday was to have been held Feb. 3, but had been postponed due to security concerns about Christopher Dorner, the former Los Angeles police officer, whose killing rampage included an Irvine couple, a Riverside police officer and a San Bernardino County Sheriff's detective.

More than a week after that postponed meeting, Dorner died, of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, after law enforcement officers surrounded his position in a remote cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Board members Leticia Garcia and Sophia Green were outraged when they learned from community members that the district's police chief had ordered 14 semi-automatic rifles without board approval.

The total purchase price for the rifles, cases for each one, ammunition, a vault to keep them in and a light for each one was $19,286, said Billy Green, the district's police chief, during a detailed and lengthy presentation to the board.

"Since 2010, there have been 32 shootings in schools, including colleges, resulting in 60 deaths and 38 injuries," Green said.

Since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, police practices changed for active-shooters in schools.

Instead of waiting for a critical mass of officers to arrive on scene, law enforcement officers move in quickly to minimize the death toll.

Green underscored that point by noting that there is a high ratio of deaths to injuries in the school shootings since 2010.

The 1997 shootout in North Hollywood demonstrated to law enforcement across the nation that when criminals get body armor, their handguns are ineffective.

Following that incident, there was a push nationwide to arm patrol officers with rifles, which have enough power to cut through non-military grade body armor, he said.

During a recent police raid of a Fontana house less than a mile from several schools, police found body armor, he said.

A computer search of people selling body armor uncovered several San Bernardino County locations where body armor was being sold, Green said, as he displayed a photograph of several advertisements on a projection screen.

It is legal for persons without felony convictions to own body armor in California, he said.

Green, and later Fontana Police Chief Rod Jones, stressed the rifle's inherent accuracy advantage over a handgun as a reason they would be a must for police responding to an active shooter situation in a school.

"We are going to send a message that violence begets more violence with these rifles," said Oskar Zambrano, one of several Fontana residents to voice disapproval of school district police having rifles.

Fontana Unified School District Board President Gus Hawthorn made a motion to direct the district's superintendent to look into an exemplary student support and counseling program subject to several stipulations including:

Sufficient funding to support the program without compromising the effectiveness of other programs.

Required bargaining with the Fontana Teachers Association.

A direct, distinct, connection to the academic success of all students.

A direct, distinct, connection to school safety.

Board member Garcia's suggestion to discuss policies governing the rifles, at a future board workshop, was also agreed to by the board.

The board also agreed to accept Garcia's motion for the district's staff to begin analyzing costs and start discussions with the district's unions, addressing the resumption of a counseling program that would be available to all students.

In 2011, the district replaced its counselors with academic pathway advisers, who help students with class scheduling issues and comprehensive student support providers, who help at-risk students.

Good students who face traumatic events, like divorce of their parents or a death in the family, often fall through the cracks of the new job categories, several students and staff members told the board.

"This just isn't working," said Nicole Robinson, a dance teacher at A.B. Miller High School.

Correction: This story about a special Fontana Unified School District board meeting was corrected on Mar. 1, 2013 to show that it was Fontana Unified School District Board President Gus Hawthorn who made a motion to direct the district's superintendent to look into an exemplary student support and counseling program subject to several stipulations including:

Sufficient funding to support the program without compromising the effectiveness of other programs.

Required bargaining with the Fontana Teachers Association.

A direct, distinct, connection to the academic success of all students.